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If ever a team needed to trade a corner bat for a shortstop, it's the Cards. They want Matt Adams in the bigs anyway, Taveras is killing the ball, they're already moving Matt Carpenter to 2B, and oh yeah Craig-Holliday-Beltran and Jon Jay...how about an Elvis Andrus trade or something?

Elvis Andrus would be the obvious fit, but the Royals fan in me would rather see an Alcides Escobar-for-Oscar Taveras trade.

The Cardinals have gotten by just fine with jobbers at shortstop (see: Furcal, Rafael). If they made a big move to fill that need, it would signal a fundamental shift in their approach to the position.

No, but he's pretty bad at it. It's weird, because he looks like a decent 2b and he has a great arm, but Descalso looks like Jeter at short. Then again, he probably looks like a decent 2b only because Skip Schumaker was the leading alternative.

Given what Kozma's done in ST and what he he did last year, are they really going to give the job to Cedeno first? I realize Kozma's essentially never hit in the minors, so it's not likely he's going to repeat any semblance of last year's SSS fluke, but Cedeno's career OPS+ is 71 in 2500 PAs so it's not like he's particularly likely to be any better.

Seems like a really fair trade, and makes positional sense for both teams.

Not to me --

Aren't their bats more or less thought to be equal?

If so - give me the guy that can presumably play a good - or at least acceptable -- SS... I'd almost never deal a blue chipper SS/IF prospect for a blue chipper OF prospect. Maybe if my IF prospect was destined to have to slide over to 1B and the OF prospect was a no-doubt-about-it CF gold glover -- but that doesn't seem the case here.

The Cardinals have plenty of bats; they don't need a big hitter at SS, just somebody who can play D and not kill them in the #8 hole. Jackson could certainly do that. If they do make a deal I would guess it would be for a superior glove man. They have so much minor league depth I would be shocked if they were to move Taveras, Miller or Rosenthal. They don't need to.

based on their current backups it wouldn’t appear they were planning on him missing the entire 2013 campaign.

That's a rather nice way of saying the backups totally suck and cannot play everyday.

The problem is the Cardinals have a lot of options - Cedeno, Descalso, Jackson, Garcia - so it may appear they don't need to do anything. But knowing which of those options would actually not be a disaster is hard to tell.

I'm sure if the Rockies will take a package of quantity over quality that Tulowitzki will be wearing birds on the bats soon. The Cardinals have the system depth and the Rockies need some talent.

Cedeno's career OPS+ is 71 in 2500 PAs so it's not like he's particularly likely to be any better.

That career OPS+ isn't a fair measure of his ability. The bad numbers Cedeno was putting up in 2006 when the Cubs rushed him to the majors before he was ready have very little to do with the player that he is today.

Over the last three years, he's at .254/.301/.370 (85 OPS+) with decent defense. That's a pretty reasonable placeholder, and much better than whatever you're likely to get from Kozma.

Ronny will have occasional (and maddening) lapses of concentration, but he's not a bad player in the broad view, and I don't think the Cards need to make a move here.

I'm hoping that Kozma is the answer, he's the only one that I think has a chance of putting up a decent bat. Jackson has looked pitiful against major league pitching. Maybe it's nerves or something, but nothing in his approach to batting in the majors inspires me with confidence that he can handle a bat. Yes his minor league numbers are much better than Kozma's but they look like completely different players in the majors so far. Obviously that is not the way to judge them, but as it stands now, there probably isn't many Cardinal fans who have watched the two play that thinks Jackson is the better player.

Of course it's not really that big of a deal, even with a replacement level hitter at short, the Cardinals offense should be in the top three in the league in runs scored. It's whether the pitching can deliver anything worthwhile that this season hinges on.